me. harvard in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. there was constant budget showdown continues on protesters increase their numbers at a day and not to be outdone the koch brothers stepped up their support as well which side will blink first strength in numbers or in dollars so let's just say strength the numbers wins out i'll tell you what else governor walker has in its arsenal against was cozzens middle and working class and taking notes in wisconsin we'll debate whether or not policy makers can learn anything from the still

stalemate in america sterility. need to know this after nearly two weeks the labor protests in wisconsin are not slowing down in fact of picking up so the biggest crowds yet more than one hundred thousand people descend upon the state capitol in madison wisconsin on saturday to speak out against governor scott walker's ideological war on unions the largest demonstration that state since the vietnam war and the protesters were joined by crowds nationwide as move on dot org held rallies in every state capitol to show solidarity with the working people of wisconsin on sunday felice ordered people in the state capital in wisconsin to leave by four pm or risk of rouse but the

deadline came and went with hundreds of people remaining camped out and those who stayed were allowed to sleep overnight there for the thirteenth night in a row back they were joined by many off duty police and firefighters police officers and firefighters meanwhile not to be out there on the billionaire koch brothers whose court. aeration is based in kansas at pleasure continue advocating for their interests in wisconsin a state or a statement released by koch industries read for the left trying to intimidate the koch brothers to back off from their support for freedom and signaling to others that this is what happens if you oppose the administration and its allies we have no choice but to continue to fight we will not step back and all. on top of that americans for prosperity executive director of michigan scott said this was. so we fight these battles on taxes and regulations but really what we'd like to see is to take the unions out at the knees so they don't have the resources to fight these battles so to the koch brothers and their interest groups have any business getting involved in this was constantly

a dispute if so what is here to speak to this issue phil kerpen ice president of policy at americans for prosperity phil welcome. great to have you here you know there's a kind of a joke it's gone viral around the internet today that there's a c.e.o. a tea party or any union guy sitting at a table with a dozen cookies and from a c.e.o. grabs eleven cookies and starts eating them and then says to the tea party guy look out that you knew i was party or cookie is not really what's going on here that the bank stores are crashed our system they made off with billions arguably trillions of dollars we got c.e.o. pay at literally record high higher than it's been since the founding of the nation and the middle class is being wiped out and in wisconsin we've got a governor wants to blame it on employees well i think the financial crisis which in my view was largely instigated by left wing policy priorities and the lack of oversight over fannie and freddie and so on although clearly there are bad actors older and wiser yelled last night

a contributing factor here no question the economic decline is one of the reasons they budgets are in crisis but they were in very poor shape before that largely because of pension and health benefit promises that were made to workers that are run sustainable and so we had some struggles brought in some state budgets he's an independent well first of all a lot of those pensions crashed because they were best in the market the market crashed but beyond that one hundred percent of the dollars paid out by pension funds are paid by the workers well i don't agree with that at all and i was how could i come article from david cay johnston i think that's highly misleading the reason pension benefits are so much more attractive to politicians than paying higher current salaries is because they bind future taxed. they are it's and therefore they have a concealed cost because it has set us up for these crises in the states we need to move i know there's a dragon transition system which is what everyone in the party in the private sector has got right now we cannot make good on these defined benefit problems if that's. so so basically you want people to move to savings accounts and that's the same argument in social security which is which is more of a pension system where you get a ponzi scheme now well you know

a lot of positive that's not a bad thing if mr if alfred ponzi or whatever his name was isn't skimming pieces off the top there's really nothing on him a great place in growth that doesn't work and that if the demographic crisis we now face in social security not really you know i mean you have to know this that if people making over one hundred six thousand dollars a year who right now don't pay a single penny into social security paid the exact same amount of so security that you and i are or anybody making under one hundred six thousand or you make but they're paid that pay that then there would be no social security cards well if you raise the way you saw people play so many more for an already bad benefit i'd much rather make everyone wealthy by allowing them to get a real market return we're off the topic here i think and i think you really do a disservice to the people of wisconsin when you suggest that this is anything other than a genuine budget fight that the terminal but that's they said if they do have a government that it can afford it has everything to give away a bunch of tax breaks to throw a state into into a into

a crisis and now he wants to he wants to bust the u.s. and it is a bad good eyes out and even at the m.d.c. it has backed off the lie that this was not a genuine budget crisis that got three points that we heard silly little bug on the head it's not a consequence of the relatively minor cuts changes they made which were necessary for conformance with things like to fit a lot of industries but you're right a lot of it is because the. stimulus federal stimulus funds ran out and because governor walker said no we don't want your money for light rail and we're not going to take your federal funds and so we're going to create a budget crisis with the media but the bottom line is why shouldn't why should billionaires macksville fifteen percent. tax free because the capital gains tax the double tax that income was already taxed when it was the rich and it's a certain by definition of your tax rate no matter how rich. and the employees of the state of wisconsin should pay twenty five thirty thirty five percent when you add in the social security tax of the state income taxes i don't get it you're saying that if somebody makes their living so they're brought around the pool or

somebody makes a living as a as a wall street hedge fund manager and these guys you know the top twenty of them have an average income two billion dollars each and they're paying fifteen percent income tax that somehow that's a capital which is the surtax the income was tax that the income tax rates when it was originally on these guys never earned this isn't where the money come from initially it came out of the pockets of investors i mean what do you say in the before the money was invested in order to yield a capital gain it was taxed as income capital gains taxes dividends is death tax everyone can have every penny of merit not every penny in america wants it or not it was you know oh i'm sorry this is not simple math single penny in america at one point or another was taxed you can't say that was that was i would say it is triple taxes quadruple today it's when the income whether it was the income tax rates then you're saying you're saying that the guys on wall street are not earning income i'm saying they don't deserve i'm saying when the income was earned it was his income it should not be paid on together to happen two three four billion all cats they

should have savings and investments there should be no income taxes at all and the two billion i would have i would repeal the capital gains and dividend tax because they're doubled so you're saying i was i don't think i'm the one is that all they want to school is that in other words capital should not pay taxes. capital should not be double tax that you pass it is consumption as you know most people in american united both of us don't realize that there's only maybe ten twenty fifty thousand capitals in america capitalist people who live off capital who invest money and then make a return on that investment and years of those. actually yeah but they're not that's not their primary source of income so they're not capitalists they have certainly a certainly have an interest in the in the what you're saying you're saying that for people who who earn their living with cash should pay no taxes for people who are in there would be by working should pay higher taxes i'm saying we should talking tax income once and only once as close to the source as possible should not of surtaxes on savings and investment. so the rich people in wisconsin should continue to only pay

a fifteen percent maximum income tax on capital gains and dividends and instead of running guys it's a surtax that's one point but you know that's sort of misses the point here which is that collective bargaining is created a vicious cycle in which people are able to use tax dollars for political activities to elect their own bosses to give them raises and then repeat that vicious cycle that's what governor walker is trying to break here and i think that's a very worthy fiscal so you'd much rather have the billionaires being influence in the polish political process rather than leaving so i mean i'd rather have the results of democratic elections respected instead of fourteen democrats fleeing the state run in illinois because they don't like the people voted for and the sheriff is going to lose you know the top ten donors it was election cycle more big corporations and billionaires three of them were unions and you guys are trying to take the unions you think that one senators don't like the results of an election they should sleep with the state refused to do their job well the senator asked the republican of the republican senators in the u.s. senate for the last two years to the exact same thing the filibuster is didn't have to leave because the rules were slow. it's the rules it's the law and these guys

have always got good eyes moving to criticize what you guys are really serving as a law so i still don't get it why you're why you're playing toady for these millionaires and billionaires and don't give a rat's ass frankly about the working people. i care deeply about working people than i do why do you want to have the you know high tax rate and the billionaires today only to me economic growth is the critical prerequisite for any of the other values that we have whatever those values only in any country in the world were economic growth has been or any time in the united states actually probably a better example where economic growth has been the result of the reduction of taxes we have the highest tax rates in our country temperament it isn't coming along in ny and it just kept off in one thousand nine hundred one triggered a twenty year boom that created twenty five million one hundred eighty one can profit created a recession that's in a crisis i should have told volcker's waiting until we could fry a lot of character is monitoring the law to actually raise taxes eleven times over the next eleven years old control again on the military side created

a temporary recession but we got the economic fundamentals right and those were the reasons for the see we have a slight difference of the day it still begs for going to. the two week long effort by protesters may be working this morning there are reports that a republican state senator deal schultz has come out saying he won't vote for walker's bill first republican defections so far short says offices since clarified that report saying he still undecided a far cry from the staunch support of the bill by most of his other republican colleagues if democrats can find just three republican state senators to come across the aisle and oppose the bill and scott walker's union busting proposal will fail so let's assume the pressure works and the protesters are able to defeat walker's bill and public employees keep their collective bargaining rights is that mean that the middle class is safe from walker's radical agenda according to a think progress report the answer is no scott walker and republican colleagues to try to slip through the state legislature ten provisions that should worry many wisconsinites let's take a look at those here's the chen provisions very straightforward number one the very

first provision of the wisconsin g.o.p. agenda huge cuts to medicaid appointee the way that this is going to happen is the governor wants to take the guy who's in charge of medicaid and make it and take him from being a civil servant to making him a political appointee so he can just decide because he's the governor's guy he can just to say oh you know medicare recipients we're just going to cut your benefits rather then you know being a civil servant who has through his or answerable to the entire legislature the second one. they're going to sell off public utilities with no bid contracts i mean this is really incredible this is arguably insane there are. koch industries the big companies in the state would love to get these public utilities and they'd rather get them for a song so that they can have the consumers by the throat shall we say but this is what they had to have the governor say this is what he's going to do this is how he's going to this is so wrong the next one is. contaminated drinking water they're

going to they're going to let the cities opt out of the state wide drinking water stance. this is i mean this is part of the larger the whole republican you know regulation is bad right so i want to cause a few cancers you know it's you know it's still it's it's the republican way the next one is that they're going to there's going to increase pollution of the well and these wetlands by the way in large part just happened to be owned by a large republican donor so you know cheap what a surprise let's let's let some contamination in there lower taxes for rich people . two thirds. let me actually explains we saw the same thing in in oregon where i live there it's what it's what happen in california it's happened in a number of states where right wing cranks usually do it by ballot initiative to get through this thing where they say you know it normally it takes of a majority of senators and assemblymen stative in the case of wisconsin house

representatives in other states normally takes a fifty one percent majority to raise taxes to spend money to lower taxes do anything or to say with a fifty one percent majority they can do anything they want the legislature and separate taxes if they want to raise taxes they've got to have a two thirds majority two thirds majority is much harder to get and so what you do is you end up with states having budget crises which then you know this naomi klein's disaster capitalism all over again on steroids which then the republicans come in and say oh my god we got a budget crisis we got to destroy the unions so many and the next one here voter disenfranchisement there what they want to do is they want to say you've got to bring a government issued photo id. now my mom you know raised four boys and basically stopped driving in her thirty's i would say she didn't have a driver's license for the last forty four years of her baby fifty years of her life she would not be able to vote was. i do i live now in washington d.c. we sold our car we moved here if i don't renew my driver's license and really why

should i i've got no idea except for a passport what about their passport with and and and this is an elderly voters the urban poor elderly bolitho vote next massive job losses cutting government workers and turning down stimulus was walker has actually said no to obama saying hey on some a couple billion bucks or some light rail no we'd rather not have the jobs we'd rather not have the money we really have a crisis so we can bust state unions and the next one skip in and stop innovation he killed the high speed rail and he actually wants this is this is a slick little piece of legislation that scott walker wants to ban wind power interstate now when your largest contributors are the koch brothers who will billionaires i suppose it makes sense to be in wind power but otherwise it seems insane to me and i'm in the next one dismantling government oversight walker wants to write the rules and ethics for government positions and the final one here a political power grab thirty seven civil servants are going to become walker

appointees in other words thirty seven people who who are you know kind of at the pinnacle of of government positions and survive from administration to administration to their civil servants so they provide some level of stability suddenly they're going to become political appointees and so they're going to be making decisions based on what walker wants not what's best for the state this is crazy. there was only alert what do you do when you're a small time crook and former cruise ship lounge singer who went into business with a partner now in prison and bought a radio station and a t.v. station a newspaper that another radio station and another t.v. station in the newspaper got another radio network then a t.v. network and ended up owning ninety five percent of all the media seen italy and so silvio berlusconi did that he created his own political party ran for prime minister with his billions in the full support of his own wholly owned versions of fox news fox radio fox news paper and surprise surprise he won three times so far

most of berlusconi's problems had to do with charges he was having sex with underage girls but now they're starting to look into the business practices that made him a billionaire and led to his becoming prime minister he was back on trial for tax fraud today after italy's constitutional court took away his immunity from prosecution that decision also allows three other cases to move forward as well surprise surprise the current tax case stems from berlusconi's media empire is media sick or peroration is accused of using offshore companies to avoid paying taxes just like bank of america alipurduar here trails for the bribery and sex crimes will begin early. still ahead here in the big picture you have heard for a while now other states are keeping a watchful eye on the battle in wisconsin whether or not they can learn something that's up to the best. actress lindsay lo and keep. the preaching about islam and the people are

suggesting she's helped or you know she says she's a stock. alan .

even though this battle over public unions may have started in wisconsin two weeks ago it's now spread all across the country stimulus money is ending thanks to the republicans the house of representatives in the great recession the bush great recession i call it cutting tax receipts there are more than forty states with budget shortfalls this year and how governors and state legislatures handle those deficits depend a lot on who wins this political debate it was constant so what lessons can the rest of the country learn from governor walker's proposal and the subsequent backlash by organized labor more on this issue i'm joined by sabrina schaefer senior fellow at the input women's forum and erika community democratic strategist welcome both of you. scott walker is having the windows bowl to shut and rolled it down so that the food can be handed in to people inside the doors of enclosed abe lincoln famously denied. the opposition party the democratic party forum in eight

hundred forty by jumping out a second story window if aides were there would he be smashing of the windows with a door with a chair or something i mean isn't this a the larger question i guess is isn't this kind of an extreme measure and isn't making walker look. at the drama in the theatrical don't get in the way of but really if they care which is a state that is in dire financial crisis and a serious conflict of. philosophy here there's the public sector unions who really do i think probably believe that this is about what they're bargaining but i think that the taxpayers and i think governor walker realize that this is not about collective bargaining this is about the taxpayers' money this is about recognizing that public sector unions are not. these small sort of counterweights that big business and in fact they are very powerful that they have very large coffers that they are very influential in the political stage of the protocol is absolutely and so i think that we need to every democratic mayoral candidate are going to get rid of those unions or well i mean it's just seems like i mean i think that this is

absolutely has nothing to do with the budget quite frankly i mean the fact is that the union leaders said that they would take walker's cuts that they were to negotiate it's not want to go to the table with them he has rejected their you know their concession in favor of continuing on collective bargaining so he's really actually made this about collective bargaining and he has made it very much about the unions and specifically the democratic unions he singled out the firefighters union the police officers unions saying that was about public safety but he kept the e.m.t. as part of his assault so he has i mean it's not his arguments and he was picking those unions that originally george exactly and then the state chapter of the troopers union said that they regretted endorsing him and you've seen firefighters have been there the firefighters of the night in the capital i think it was last weekend they've been out there in force and police officers off duty officers are trying to get lost in a conversation that is clearly there's a very good people out there who are trying to do their jobs they want that

recognition on both sides but i think what's what's lost is that let's say we're looking at the firefighter the policeman what about that excellent school teacher why is it that she should or he should be subject to the to the salaries that are negotiated on her his behalf by the teachers union the school board why shouldn't i go there at a concert you know i was. not for the union i mean they voted for their representatives not for their not for the. leadership idea and their representatives in a democrat seems unable right but the real issue here i mean why is it that i think we've got a clip from fox news don't. listen. shepard smith i think laid this out and i'm wondering why is it that only fox news is telling telling the real story. about this but have you looked at the list of the top ten donors to political campaigns in america the top ten highest seven of seven of those ten donate to republicans

the other three that remain of those top ten unions play although it's democrats and they're all unions bust the unions it's over yeah so you just told me the whole deal but that's the whole thing as goebbels gore did when it started with the koch brothers right yet scope brothers were organizing in the state i'm not taking a side on this i'm going to what's going on do you think eventually exactly the story i'd say guys i don't know if you want to hear that exactly and so just by telling the facts you're angry a lot ok let's get angry facts are troublesome creatures from time to time don't talk like that of. who i really want to be and i call that a god after that robert you know very honest. but really i mean there's your your point or the republican right or the conservative point of whatever you want to call i think it's probably a more partisan point is that the republicans have been gladly taking money from billionaires since the robber baron era democrats have been largely taking money from unions destroy the unions destroy the democrat what you're really being

transparent about it thomas played hard i mean you have to listen to life is not nothing like the saying oh the union figure type of little guy there they're there to be this counterweight to big business what are you going to tell me that. when asked me his twenty and a half million dollars the democratic campaign they're the largest supporter of the twenty ten midterm elections the democrats we have to be we have already said already i'm a clearance because they support the big government policies i think it's more about community desires and workers' rights is that the democratic party has long stood up for workers and i think this is going to mean it's been a very partisan line here and what these jobs are these are good middle class jobs these are people who are teachers who are on trash collectors who are. our tax auditors in various county why should i run hard worker i'm in the private sector and i'm asking who's going to stand up for my tax dollars should you worry there are you know if i could only help at that then and can you do you think all of us who do you think will do you don't really agree with who it is that big that big

government agenda you said the democrats are supporting you know social security medicare and employment insurance all those things that the republicans have fought against for the last one hundred years i mean you know all those things that big government agenda is what the democrats are standing for it's what the unions are stupid for but the problem is that that's what most americans know well and it's not that i i don't want to i don't want to engage you know i think most americans still really on social security no actually it is he's right here where they're not exactly you know an arm of the republican party tested a survey on social security reform this fall and they found that seventy percent of people under the age of forty support partial privatization of social security that was there so we knew some form of you know to use a right wing smear i call another three in here and we're going to hear it is you know they're going to go to the security and they are now i want to make sure that you understand the country is not they do not endorse these policies but they do but the public doesn't dorce collective bargaining is what we're seeing in

wisconsin and we're seeing across the country that the polls are showing and walker stalled are going down people do you support these workers ability to collectively bargain and public sector unions and employers in wisconsin are actually underpaid compared to their counterparts in the private sector where you see that people who have a college degree are making twenty percent less than they are and they would be in the private sector so it's not as if they are this that the public spending that people aren't getting their money's worth you're getting all of these professionals at a bargain basement price and you know the thing about education being at a crisis level at state government i mean if it were not hiring good people in these roles or auditing and function for the government i mean to be real. we want you know these these job for these workers to not be in the public sector we still have to get so competitive in the process we still want to attract good workers and educated people and the best the brightest into public servants well i guess you do if you want you know government run education for instance which i do not i mean i

think that these teachers and the students of this concert would benefit from an expansion of. the center education system over the billionaire's what it will serve they're going to say they're going to provide that funds for kids who would otherwise not be able to attend then absolutely but that then leaves so you went back into the hands of the wealthy and not into the jury and out of the utah who are strongly tied to the individual who's able to actually know not to do without money because they don't know if you don't write every thousand dollars it doesn't matter that we're going to use you know all about and so how much money i mean but it was not implying on their own it were no. but you're right i mean i think that the idea we're distorting as i mean the fact is both in italy i think that people do better when they are able to negotiate and for freely into contracts on their own terms and employer rather than like i'd like to. thank you. frankly in my opinion this isn't just about was constantly more this is about the future of our democracy i sure hope the billionaires don't run this one we'll see.

crazy alert baby bank robbery parents of a fourteen month old toddler had some tense moments inside a wells fargo bank in georgia on friday night well visiting a family member who works at the bank that's where wandered into one of the bank vaults and was locked inside for four hours a locksmith that he called and a large drill was needed to reach the wall before the young girl could be rescued fortunately the ordeal ended affably but it's unclear how much cash the toddler was able to stuff into or diaper before being freed from the falls. still out of the big picture we've seen demonstrations against austerity measures i cross the pond while the vast majority of americans just sat and watched but now it seems the us may have only caught up plus president obama now so some states can choose to opt

out of his affordable care act well sort of i'll take a look at what the president means. bribes the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through. who can you trust no one who is in view with the global machinery to see where we had a state controlled capitalism it's called satchels when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more. than here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.